A PRAYER TO START
The life of faith comes down to choices. Often small choices in how we relate to God, to ourselves and to others. Summed up is the famous “rule”, “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them.” Easier said than done. Which is why we pray with Paul, (paraphrasing portions of Romans 7-8)
Father, I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. Help me! What a wretched human I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Why YOU, O LORD! Thanks be to you through Jesus Christ in whom there is no condemnation for he has set me free from sin and death and given me the Spirit to walk in, be guided by and who will bear your fruit in me. Help me to choose in my actions to believe what is in my heart today. Thank you for new mercies each morning that are sufficient to cover my sin and propel my freed obedience. Amen.
TAKING A LOOK AHEAD
On any journey, whether a hike in the mountains or a trek to the grocery store, it is important to be aware of your surroundings, to be present. It’s also important to know where you are going! To look up, and take a peek at what is ahead.
This coming week our journey moves to the end of Jesus’ introduction to the kingdom of God. In this final chapter of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus sums up and sorts out the path of kingdom life for those in the audience. He will then spend the next several years, and Matthew will spend the next several chapters, putting practice to what has been preached.
Read Matthew 7:1-29. As you are reading take notice and note of the following:
Who are the characters in the story? Explicitly named and those assumed.
Where does the story take place? Physically, & how is it connected to what proceeds it?
What repeats? Words, characters, actions/events, sayings, descriptions, etc.
What surprised you?
What might have surprised the people Matthew was writing to?
What questions does the story raise so far?
CONNECTING THE DOTS
The first twelve verses of the chapter have to do with how we relate to ourselves, one another and to God. Verses 1-5 reveal the nature of the issue that most often separates us both internally and externally. A little context to verse 6, “dog” was a term used to deride the gentiles and “pig” had similar connotation for the Romans. So to not do what verse 5 says to do when relating to a brother or sister, those who are holy and precious in the sight of God, is essentially treating them like what you value least, and it will come back to bite you. Verses 7-11 remind us how God relates to you and I, and verse 12 then is the heart of the law and prophets: to treat others as God has treated us.
In the eighteen verses that follow, through verse 27, Jesus makes sure to let us know that there are only two ways to respond to his way. And both have recognizable consequences.
The chapter closes with “astonishment”, not simply at the words of Jesus—which are certainly astounding—but at the “authority” by which he taught. There is something amazing about Jesus. Revelatory, different, and such proximity will always leave us in awe.
What is the summation issue Jesus uses to describe the tension of our relating to others in verses 1-5?
In what ways or areas are you prone to miss your own “logs” but nonetheless go after other’s “speck”?
Why is this tendency so divisive, especially in a faith family?
Consider verses 7-11. How would you sum up the way God relates to you and I?
Do you feel that God relates to you in this way normally? Do you think your friends and co-workers do? Why not?
How might the issue of verses 1-6 impact our and others impression of God relating to us?
Re-read verses 13-27. What are the two options to respond to the way of Jesus?
How do we know which one we have chosen?
What are the consequences of each choice?
A THOUGHT TO PONDER
“[To have Faith in Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.”
(C.S. Lewis)